The present invention generally relates to excavation apparatus, and more particularly relates to a flex pin connector device used to releasably hold a first excavation structure, such as a ripper shank, within an associated second excavation structure such as a ripper box.
An earth excavating bucket is typically mounted on pivotable boom linkage and has an open front side along a bottom edge of which a spaced series of forwardly projecting digging teeth are mounted, and a closed rear side. During excavation operations the bucket is tilted forwardly and downwardly at an appropriate angle and driven forwardly along the earth to cause the digging teeth to penetrate and break up the portion of the earth in the path of the bucket. As the bucket passes over the broken up earth section it scoops up the loosened earth.
To facilitate the excavation operation when rock or frozen or very hard earth is encountered, the excavation bucket is often provided with a ripper assembly comprising a hollow ripper box centrally welded to the closed back side of the bucket, and an elongated, generally vertically oriented ripper shank having an upper end portion removably received in the ripper box. The lower end of the shank has a single ripper tooth removably secured thereto and positioned behind the rear side of the bucket.
During normal operation of the bucket, only the bucket teeth contact and break up the earth, with the trailing ripper tooth being positioned in an upwardly spaced apart relationship with the earth by appropriate adjustment of the boom linkage. However, when rock or frozen or very hard earth is encountered, the boom linkage is operated to rotationally reorient the bucket in a manner such that only the ripper tooth contacts and breaks up the earth as the bucket is forwardly driven along the earth. This concentrates the entire forward bucket drive force on the single ripper tooth and assists in the breakage of the hard earth formation. The bucket may then be raised, tilted back to its normal excavation orientation, backed up, lowered, and then forwardly passed over the ripped earth to permit the series of bucket teeth to further break up the ripped earth and load it into the bucket.
Under conventional practice the ripper shank telescopingly received in the ripper box is removably retained therein by means of a connector pin device generally horizontally extended through aligned openings in the ripper box and shank. Typically this connector pin is a solid cylindrical metal member driven into the aligned shank and box openings, and is removably held in place in such openings using a cotter pin or the like. Prior art connector pins of the type allow a considerable amount of side-to-side "play" between the ripper shank and box during excavation operations. This side-to-side play often leads to undesirably rapid wear at the ripper shank/box interface, thereby necessitating frequent replacement of one or both of these excavation assembly components.
It can readily be seen from the foregoing that it would be highly desirable to provide an improved connector pin apparatus, for removably retaining a ripper shank in an associated ripper box, that eliminates, or at least substantially reduces, the undesirable side-to-side shank/box play typically associated with conventional connector pins used in this application. It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provided such improved connector pin apparatus.